Operation Faustschlag

Operation Faustschlag was a large-scale Central Powers offensive on the Eastern Front of World War I which lasted from 18 February to 3 March 1918. The offensive targeted Soviet Russia, which was forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and allow for the German Empire to create puppet states in Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland.

Background
The strain of fighting for three years against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Turkey eventually proved too much for the Russian Empire. A political, social, and military collapse followed during the course of 1917.

Russia's czarist regime was overthrown in March 1917. The Provisional Government attempted to revitalize the Russian war effort, but the failure of the Kerensky Offensive led to the disintegration of the Russian army. In November 1917, revolutionary Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and called for an end to the war. By that time, German and Austro-Hungarian troops had occupied large areas of the former Russian Empire, including Poland.

Offensive
On 13 November 1917, Leon Trotsky, Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Russian Bolshevik government, contacted the German High Command to request an armistice as a prelude to peace negotiations. Talks with the Central Powers were held at Brest-Litovsk, a German regional headquarters in modern-day Belarus. Having no diplomatic corps, the Bolsheviks sent a delegation of revolutionary activists and token representatives of Russian society - workers, soldiers, sailors, peasants, and women. An armistice, initially for one month, was announced on 15 December. Further progress toward a peace agreement, however, raised a deeply divisive issues.

Peace at any price
Militaryily weak and facing starvation in its cities, Austria-Hungary was prepared to renounce all territorial gains in the interest of achieving a swift agreement. By contrast, Germany's military leaders, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, were determined to treat Russia as a defeated enemy and impose harsh peace terms. Germany's civilian government, sensitive to support within the Reichstag (German parliament) for less punitive terms, pursued a more nuanced approach. In the end, however, Hindenburg and Ludendorff prevailed. On the Russian side, the Bolsheviks were in a weak negotiating position. They were struggling to hold on to power and were facing the beginnings of a civil war. In parts of the former Russian Empire, notably Ukraine and Finland, anti-Bolshevik nationalists were asserting independence. The Russian army had disintegrated and the new Red Army was not yet a credible fighting force. The Bolsheviks' only hope lay in the spread of revolution. They believed that if they could spin out the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, workers' revolutions might overthrow the governments of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and other countries, and bring other socialist regimes to power. Taking over leadership of the Bolshevik delegation at Brest-Litovsk in January 1918, Trotsky adoped a stance summed up in the slogan "Neither war nor peace." He would neither acceppt Germany's peace terms nor resume the fighting. On 9 February, Germany and its allies presented an ultimatum: the Bolsheviks must either agree to peace terms or the Central Powers would resume hostilities. On 10 February, Trotsky broke off negotiations. The Bolshevik leadership was split. The largest faction favored launching a revolutionary people's war against the Central Powers. Lenin, however, believed it was necessary to accept the German terms. He argued that the alternative was to see the Bolshevik government overthrown by the German army and the revolution snuffed out. On 18 February, while the Bolsheviks hesitated, the Germans took the offensive. Meeting no resistance, German troops pushed deep into Ukraine, Belarus, the Donetz basin, and the Crimea, advancing up to 30 miles a day. Fearing an imminent attack on the Russian capital, Petrograd, by German and anti-Bolshevik Finnish forces, the Bolshevik government accepted German terms on 23 February. These were harsher than those they had previously rejected. A peace treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk on 3 March. Russia lost almost all its European territories. Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became nominally independent states under effective German control. Turkey was awarded territory in the Caucasus. The areas lost were especially populous and prosperous, accounting for a third of Russia's prewar population and more than half its industry.

Impact on Germany
Along with a punitive peace imposed on Russia in May, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a triumph for the Central Powers. But the victory in the east proved less valuable to the German war effort than had been expected. The greatest gain was the transfer of German troops to the Western Front from late 1917, but over a million soldiers were still needed as occupation forces in the east. Their task of extricating resources from the conquered territories - such as the oil-producing city of Baku (in modern-day Azerbaijan) - and sending them to Germany was hindered by wrecked transportation networks.

There was also continued fighting. In Finland, for example, German troops helped right-wing nationalists defeat socialists in a civil war. In Ukraine, the exploitative policies of the German governor, Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn, provoked armed uprisings among the peasant population. The occupation forces also had to be fed, further reducing the quantities of goods that trickled back to Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Aftermath
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk allowed Germany to plan its domination of Eastern Europe. It also helped galvanize Allied efforts on the Western Front. For the Allies, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended any hopes of a negotiated "just peace" by showing that Germany's leadership was intent upon military conquest. Eighteen days after the signing of the treaty, the Germans launched a string of offensives on the Western Front, employing the extra forces transferred from the East. The campaign, known as the Spring Offensive, began with the Michael Offensive on 21 March. Germany's intention was to win the war before US troops could be drafted to Europe in substantial numbers. The strategy began well but ultimately failed. Germany's defeat in November 1918 left the Treatty of Brest-Litovsk null and void and Germany withdrew its army from the lands it had occupied. Instead, the future shape of Central and Eastern Europe was determined by the outcome of the Russian Civil War and other conflicts that continued into the early 1920s.